


Carrion Crow

by hilarions



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: M/M, Searching for A.W.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 14:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilarions/pseuds/hilarions
Summary: Link had dreamed many things during his death. He couldn’t remember most of them, but he remembered Allen. Remembered his ridiculous, bubbling tears, useless and selfish. Frustrating. That Link could claim ownership of his own guilt, his own fault, and have Walker still be the one to shoulder blame for it.As though he were disallowing Link the righteousness of owning his mistakes.





	Carrion Crow

There was an angel in the alleyway, but it only had one wing, so it couldn’t fly. 

Link had a vantage; a crow’s nest in the cathedral. He could see Walker from afar. Could see him aching, struggling, persevering. Link couldn’t get closer. Wouldn’t allow himself to. He was determined not to interfere, and knew without much doubt that he wouldn’t be able to help himself. 

He was under orders not to interfere, and it was incredibly trying to adhere to them. 

The integrity of his obedience gave him no choice but to do nothing, and indeed with careful breaths and a focused mind, he could pretend it was easy. Close his eyes to the sprawling, tangled vista of the city spread out below him and picture Leverrier. Only Leverrier. 

Lifting his own rosary over Link’s head. 

The ragged, altruistic, maddened look about him. Hair out of place, eyes wild, voice unhinged with the fervor of a man speaking in tongues, but just as meticulous as ever. Just as thorough.

Link trusted in Malcolm Leverrier, unto his own death - and beyond. The precision of Link’s equipment, laid out ready and waiting for him to carry out his orders, did not speak of madness. The logistical finesse of Link’s  _ death,  _ of his recovery, of his dossier, did not speak of madness. Link  _ trusted  _ Leverrier. He had to trust he was right. 

Had to trust he was sane. 

Breaths forcibly steady, Link lowered his gaze back to the scope perched on the window ledge, still trained on Walker’s location. 

Link clenched his teeth, corrected his thoughts.  _ The Fourteenth’s _ location. The Fourteenth, the Fourteenth, the Fourteenth. It wasn’t Walker he was hunting. It wasn’t Walker that Leverrier wanted. 

He could see the grey dearth of Noah Memories bleeding across the host’s skin, flash of crazed gold eyes illuminated ghastly and awful beneath the ragged, unearthly glow of that one single wing. It didn’t look like a wing. Not really. It looked broken and tattered, twisted all wrong in a way that twisted Link’s stomach to see. 

Surely it was Crown Clown, but Link couldn’t recognise it. He pulled away from the scope, swallowed thickly. Breathed deeply. Bent to pen observations in neat, crisp writing in the notebook arranged on the sill. The Innocence was mutated and unstable; an effect of being confined to the same host as dark matter?

Something flickered in Link’s memory, but it was gone like a whisper of a feather blown loose before he could grasp it, and look at it. He frowned, fingers hesitating an inch over his scarred chest. Even through layers of clothes, he dared not touch it. Ahuuda was not a presence he had learned to welcome, just yet. 

It felt like a dream, caught on the edge of his consciousness. Walker’s eyes blossoming with feathers. 

It  _ must  _ be a dream. Such a thing was absurd, and Link had dreamed many things during his death. He couldn’t remember most of them, but he remembered Allen. Remembered his ridiculous, bubbling tears, useless and selfish. Frustrating. That Link could claim ownership of his own guilt, his own fault, and have Walker still be the one to shoulder blame for it. 

As though he were disallowing Link the righteousness of owning his mistakes. 

He breathed deeply, carefully. Lowered himself to the scope, adjusted the scale to follow where the Fourteenth was stumbling, dogged, through alleys and backstreets. He could do nothing but watch. 

An Ark Gate was opening beneath Walker’s feet, and Link saw it before the wearied Fourteenth did. But, he would do nothing. He would watch, and record, and refuse to step in, because Johnny and Kanda were closing in and the last thing Link needed was to be seen. 

He would watch, and record, and wait for his opportunity, and all the better if Kanda didn’t know he was alive, and Johnny, and Allen. 

All the better if Allen never knew that Link was alive, and that his role was to play crow more than ever. To watch Allen’s descent from judgement above, to let him fail, so Link could pick and tear the carrion from his bones, gut him of his entrails, to find the virus that had killed him and take it as a gift to Leverrier. 

Feathers blooming from Allen’s eyes, an earthen pot of porridge cracked and shattered on the floor, and Link’s hands at Allen’s cheeks, clean white gloves tangled with the greasy, unwashed mess of Allen’s hair. Link’s voice torn ragged from screaming his name - calling out to him. Terrified of losing him.

_ Maybe,  _ he considered, steeling his jaw against his heart as he watched the Akuma emerge and ambush their unwary Fourteenth,  _ maybe if I’d been less reliant on the Order, I could have saved him.  _

He pulled away from the scope, made a record of the attack, and looked down at the perfect, neat pages of his notes rather than watch the brutality of Walker’s predicament. Averted his eyes to his own cowardice. Link dragged in a deep, careful breath, curled his fingers around the cross of Leverrier’s rosary, and tried to think only of him. 

It was just a dream - he was certain. 

Just a dream telling him what he already knew, for the rotten guilt eating at his atrophied heart. He was a carrion crow, a scavenger. It had never been within his power to save anyone.


End file.
